sent in by Frank Sims I wish I could remember my very first experience with Christianity. I was raised Catholic, but shortly after my eleventh birthday my family slowly drifted from the church and its teachings. My mother was a proud believer, but my father oscillated from a believer to an agnostic. The general lifestyle of our household was mostly secular. Early Doubts I’m going to tell you up front that I had a lot of doubts about Christianity – even as a young boy. I didn’t tell anyone; though my mom might have picked up on this when we occasionally would tangle in a theological discussion. The discussion, such as it was, usually ended with the statement that I should believe because anything else was simply inappropriate. I remember the day I engaged my Catholic fourth-grade teacher in a small debate about tenability of Adam and Eve and early creation. Since this was a Christian school it ended quietly with a note sent home to my mother. Upon leaving my home for the Navy at age sev...

sent in by undeceived12 I was 16 when I went to this church which was supposed to be a church that helped and provided spiritual support to people who didn’t have it. It all went well (at first). I received Jesus and like a little kid I started to follow a life that not only was a very hard life to live, but an almost impossible one. I read my bible, prayed, and had a relationship with God, or so I thought. I imagined that my walk in the path to Jesus was going well until I started to see some things that were going on in the church. I saw many things that led me to believe that the pastors were stealing from the people, but as a good Christian, I kept my mouth shut. More and more I was convinced that the pastors were only looking for money. As the weeks went by the preacher would ask for money every single week, on top of the ten percent supposedly established by God. Right… Well, he (the pastor) made up tons of excuse: the church needs funds to pay this...to pay that… People, includi...

sent in by Chris Twenty years ago, when I was 15 years old, I was struggling terribly with my sexuality. I realized that I was gay about three years earlier, and I totally freaked out. I was depressed and suicidal. At about that time, I had the misfortune of seeing Jimmy Swaggart on television. I ordered his religious magazine, The Evengelist. When it arrived, I read an article in which he said, "All a homosexual needs to do is accept Jesus Christ as his savior and he will no longer be a homosexual." I was a gullible, naive 15-year old, so I was thrilled to find the antidote to my unwanted sexuality. Remember, this was in 1985. It seems so recent, but things were much different then than they are today. Today, at least people talk about sexuality. But 20 years ago, people rarely spoke about these things at all. Telling someone that you were gay could be an admission greeted with shock, anger or even a fist to the nose. I desperately wanted to change my sexuality. T...

sent in by Steve I've read many of the books by Peter Gomes and John Shelby Spong. Their terrific books and writings have been very helpful in appreciating the good things about Christianity. I highly recommend their writings. I love Jesus the man, the human, the carpenter's son, for his ethical teachings of compassion, forgiveness, love and living life abundantly. His teaching are like Filet Mignon! I enjoy some hymns and occasionally meditations and quiet times within a church setting. I appreciate ministers who are wonderful communicators and orators who convey the gospel of peace and love. I'm more of a social, liberal gospel person --- caring and helping the least among us, those who are hurt, sick, lonely, sad, hungry, homeless and suffering. And the other versions of Christianity are often an anathema to my decorum! (think Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, charlatans, hypocrites and assorted kooks galore!, e...

sent in by Anonymous When I was little, I can remember my Mom telling me that it was a “miracle” that I survived birth. Being born two months premature provided little hope for my family. She even said, “God must have a reason for you to be here.” There was little question in my mind as to whether there was a God. Of course there was. He was responsible for me surviving as a baby. If Mom hadn’t prayed and asked others to, I wouldn’t have made it. We only went to church together as a family a few times. It was to a rather evangelical protestant one. Even from a young age, I had my doubts. I found it odd that a woman in attendance could not only speak to God, but also hear what he had to say. There was even a time where I yelled during Holy Communion, “You’re not supposed to drink blood!” The next time we went to church, my Dad whipped me before we went in, “just in case I did anything bad.” At least seven or eight years passed before I regularly went to church again. However,...

sent in by Mark Fouche Well....where should I start? Like all Christian cliché stories I will start by saying that I was brought up in a Christian home, Christian family and Christian community. Now my whole life I believed in Christianity as being the way....yet never really thought about it or had the "revelation" ceasing my heart and convicting me to turn to God. I had dabbled in witchcraft and the occult and was always interested in that which was unknown. Now my whole life I had suffered rejection in some sort of sense and I remember crying myself to sleep at night when I was younger praying to God to just kill me, or for Jesus to help me as I felt so alone.yet my prayers were never answered. I carried on through life almost committing suicide at the age of 11 or 12. Things got better until at the age of sixteen I lost almost all my friends by something i did. This drove me into depression and loneliness, I became "broken". I started going to a youth and was en...

sent in by Kevin Why did I loose my faith? To be honest, there was no single reason, no silver bullet that turned me from a serious, bible believing Christian to a self-professing agnostic/atheist. My faith struggle took place over a period of three years, and was the result of many different reasons. I will cover some of them in later posts, but one of the main causes can be summed up by a quote in Philip Yancey’s Disappointment With God. Yancey recounts the true story of Richard, a young Christian writer who looses his faith after a long and painful struggle with his belief. Yancey records Richard as saying: “How can you have a personal relationship if you’re not sure the other person even exists?” This was the exact problem I had – dealing with a hidden friend. I started to slide from my faith when I realised that although I was talking a lot to God, I wasn’t hearing much in reply. As a believer, I was expected to share my all with God, every thought and desire; but in return he did...

sent in by TWJ Just thought I'd add my two cents. My father was a conservative, fundamentalist minister who is well known to many in the mid-west. I remember when I was first questioning my faith and I wished I could just hear about someone like me who had left his or her faith. It wasn't easy at first, but has become much easier and more comfortable as time passes. I'm 45 now and have a lovely wife and family. I found that leaving my parents, extended family and friends to live in other states helped make leaving "the faith" much less painful. It can be difficult at first, but it can be done successfully. I'd recommend that if you're a young person who is a "free thinker", if you've found the courage to admit that no one knows if there is a God or not, just keep it to yourself. This is particularly true for PKs (preacher's kids) and MKs (missionary's kids). Don't let people know that you're a non-believer until you can aff...

sent in by Deborah Religion sucks... All "my life" (it's never been my fuckin' life) I've been told what a heathen I am. Daddy told me Charles Mansons' followers were going to heaven, but I wasn't. I was 15 then. Pretty scary stuff. So I repented & joined his church {Beth Yeshua-NY}. There I was treated to old men sticking their tongues down my throat [in front of their wives & all God's other children!]. I told Daddy but he said I was lying. My younger brother was seduced by Gaye, a "woman of God" who loved to show us photos of her life before she got "saved." Then there was Michelle. the teen w/the huge tits who regularly spent nights at the pastor's house. Hmmm... I guess I owe Gaye this much: she said I could masterbate; Michelle said God would punish me. At 15 I gave up sex, friends, drinking,...everything I knew! But it wasn't enough for them... Mom (her name is Virginia--it's hard to call a woman who r...

sent in by "just me" I have been lurking on this site for over a year. It has brought out many emotions...anger (over the past), resentment of wasting precious years, laughter at how many of the posts express various ways of dealing with "the Borg" and many fun laughs. So, I thought I should finally chime in. Be Warned! Once I get started I usually can't keep my mouth shut -- One of the reasons why I am an xtian. Well here it goes. My apologies to those whom I bore. Also, please do not misconstrue my message. I am not angry (anymore) with anyone in my family concerning my upbringing. After all, they too are hoodwinked by the Big Ugly. At the tender age of 5 days old, my parents placed me on the alter at my fathers church (he was the pastor and founder) and "turned me over to god (they didn't specify which one??). It was the "fire and brimstone" type of church that frightened people into pissing their panties. Thus was the main reaso...

sent in by Billy Wheaton I guess I have spent the last twenty years in a state of intermittent bewilderment over how many very bright Evangelical Christians that I know. Eventually, a discussion transpires that sends me on a litany of challenges that are virtually never taken seriously and repetitiive. So, I decided to start a web site and write a book. My purpose was two-fold. First, I wanted to put together the evidence that I knew that I found myself repeating over and over again. I have just started and some of this is at billywheaton.com Second, and most important, I needed to figure out why so many very bright people refuse to confront their "faith" and desperately need their "faith" to feel intellectually valid. My research has led me to two major conclusions: 1) Evangelical Christian truly do not see or feel any harm that may come from their belief in Biblical inspiration and inerrancy. Thus, even if one cannot easily validate their faith, the vast maj...

sent in by Albert I grew up with very little religion. My parents had had it forced down their throats and didn't want the same for my sister and me. So although I understood the basic framework of Christianity and we celebrated the holidays, we never went to church, prayed at the dinner table etc. My wife on the other hand had been raised an Anglican all her life. Although I never cared much for the liturgies and rituals of her church (although I liked the music and hymns), I always enjoyed the sermons by the minister because they were insightful and related to everyday life rather than being some kind of esoteric high powered theology. Eventually the minister went back to Northern Ireland and was replaced by a pleasant but very boring fellow. Neither my wife nor I found this much to our liking and we attended church rarely after that. A few years after that I attended the funeral of one of my colleagues and was really impressed by the minister from a local evangelical church so w...

sent in by Bob I would like to share some of my personal experiences from the "Christian right". I was born in the late fifties. My mother converted to a pretty extreme sect within the Baptist religion when I was two years old. At the tender age of five, I was afforded the opportunity of salvation so that, when I die, I could go to heaven and play with the snakes, lions and tigers in eternal bliss. The alternative would be, of course, an eternity of damnation in the scorching hot fires and brimstone of HELL. I chose playing with the snakes, lions and tigers. This form of the Baptist religion had very stringent interpretations of the bible and the pastor(s) loved to share them with the congregation. One moment (shall I say one side of his mouth), the pastor would talk about the eternal patience and (what seemed to be) unconditional love for every living creature on earth by our creator and in the very next moment, would pound his fist on the podium and declare the vengefulness...

sent in by Alex I came to my sister's house for dinner and she insisted that I post here. She did a couple of weeks ago and it was fascinating to read the discussion her testimony provoked. I was raised as a devout Catholic. I seriously considered joining the priesthood. My leaving Christianity was the result of a series of fortunate events. A new employee Simon joined my department at work. He was an evangelical. I live in the LA area. You don't have a whole lot of evangelicals here. Anyway, we really hit it off. We loved discussing religion. I knew he believed I was headed for Hell but I didn't care because I knew that Catholicism was the one true faith and all the rest were apostates. Simon volunteered at a youth camp every Summer. He taught the kids at the camp the importance of abstinence before marriage and gave lectures on the subject in Sunday school classes. I thought this was great even though I hadn't exactly followed the abstinence thing myself. One day we g...

sent in by YouJon Around 2000 I began going to a cutting edge growing church. By 2003 the brainwashing was successfully and I was a full-blown believing Christian. The church was in the final phases of a 14 million dollar expansion. They were in the market for a highly skilled building maintenance person. Believing in God I applied and was chosen over others who also applied. I left the auto industry where I was a top notch tech making good money. I bought into that crap that God would take care of me and pay me back for what I was doing for him. I took a $12,000 a year pay-cut to fulfill his will for me. The first year I was so busy I didn't even have time to talk to people. I didn't see the politics, evil and just plain screwed up people working there. The second year sh*t started going sour and I began questioning whether God could really be true with the things I was seeing inside the church. During the expansion phase the church hired a man to serve as a general contractor...

sent in by a born-again atheist I was born in 1971 into a beer drinking redneck family. We were Lutherans and went to a small country church about one weekend per month. Church was boring to my older brother and I, and, like most kids, we whined and moaned when our parents tried to make us go. My parents took us to church because they thought it was the right thing to do, but they didn’t seem that enthusiastic about it, and some Sundays they were too hung over to go and relented to our begging to not go. In 1980, with my mom in the hospital undergoing a stomach operation, my dad was “lead to the Lord” by a coworker and was “saved”. He had his friend visit my mom and I (my brother was away somewhere) and we both “accepted Christ” into our hearts. I remember my dad’s friend talking to us for about 2 hours. It seemed like an eternity to a 9-year-old. At the end of his presentation, he asked my mother and I to repeat a prayer after him, and, not being averse to prayer, I repeated aft...

sent in by Tracy This subject is still difficult for me to discuss because it's only been about nine months since faith as I knew it permanently changed. I got saved in the Church of Christ in 1997 and joined the ranks of college singles in crusading for Christ. I married in early 1998 to a confirmed, non-practicing Catholic and we moved away and had a baby. There were many heated Sunday mornings involving me attempting to get my husband out of bed for church. He had a bigger picture of God than I did at the time, and could see right through my legalistic pleas. I'll never forget something he said to me....."You don't want me to go to church so I'LL feel good, you need me to go so that YOU'LL feel good." Which, to a certain extent, I believe we all look for validation in any faith that we practice. Hence....fellowship, I guess. Well, shortly after my son was born, I developed postpartum psychosis and obsessive compulsive disorder. For those of you who are...